Anyone who thinks that an AB InBev disrupter agency will put money into the largest independent beer consumer website in the world for reasons of beery camaraderie is not yet old or wise enough to understand how the world works.

It won’t be for the money - they have way too much of that already. It might be in order to get access to more information about how the thing works or conceivably to get greater access to something or other. It may become clearer eventually.

Or it might simply be in order to undermine RB’s reputation for independence. In which case, good job guys, it’s working so far!

Concerning the announcement: I’ve read through quite a few threads on this, and for the sake of not further pissing anyone off, I’ll steer clear from saying anything on the matter.

But I need to get something off my chest: I’m very disappointed on how this has been handled. It was obvious from the start that this would be controversial. You even knew it would be leaked some time. But you chose not to say anything about it before you had to. From what I understand, this was to make sure RBB runs smoothly and "Because that’s how it’s done." Now the damage is done. With honest communication from the start, much could have been averted.

This deal doesn’t matter to what percentage was given as a minority. If you are in the camp of not giving money to AB-InBev then don’t repurchase your premium membership. I just realized mine is no longer active and I doubt I will re-up, to the simple fact that my original intent was to give some money to one guy running this show solo; this is no longer the case and they don’t need my donation to function.

There does seem to be quite a few people coming out of nowhere, joining after this acquisition announcement just to come on the forums and incite some mess. It is disheartening, but if they stick around, who actually wins in this situation?

I have had a lot of friends in the beer industry ask me my opinion because I am rather active on this site since I joined, and I feel my membership will stay here rather than the pretentiousness of BA, or the silliness of UnTappd. I hope no real changes are made to the way the site is run. And I feel like if the ratings of AB products all of sudden started going up, enough people would notice.

Breweries requesting to take their ratings off here is absurd grandstanding at best. None of us are journalists and those rules do no apply; at best we are doing this as a hobby, and some of us are in the industry in some factions as well. The amount of time and effort I have put into my ratings may make my decision here biased, but I do not think a brewery has the right to pull their entries from a public forum just because of ownership; it would be like someone having their movie pulled rom IMDB because Amazon owns it, ridiculous. And Sam’s B.S. about getting free stuff and AB products getting better reviews is laughable. Every beer journalist I know gets treated like king any brewery they go to, with free beer at least, most of the time private tours, tastings, and swag if they want.

Cheers, Joe

I think you made the right decision for your life. I just wish you hadn’t waited so long to tell us.

P.S. Everyone knows the GoodBeerHunting is a Goose Island lackey, and his company is also partially owned by AB-InBev as well, right? Thus his snooping leading to this info before it was public.

Originally posted by jbruner
I just wish you hadn’t waited so long to tell us.

This. Why wait almost a year to let everyone on here know about this? I see my premium didn’t auto-renew like it should have, but lucky for me...

This is as shady as shady gets; letting people keep giving money and time to a site they may not have if the truth was known. I think the backlash is what kept Joe quiet, but this stinks all the more than just coming clean when you should have.

Originally posted by Tim Webb
Anyone who thinks that an AB InBev disrupter agency will put money into the largest independent beer consumer website in the world for reasons of beery camaraderie is not yet old or wise enough to understand how the world works.

It won’t be for the money - they have way too much of that already. It might be in order to get access to more information about how the thing works or conceivably to get greater access to something or other. It may become clearer eventually.

Or it might simply be in order to undermine RB’s reputation for independence. In which case, good job guys, it’s working so far!

Be sure that (almost) no one here believe in the "beery camaraderie" reason. I don’t believe in the access to more information. It remains the only thing which we all can see happening now: your last point.

Originally posted by Tim Webb
Anyone who thinks that an AB InBev disrupter agency will put money into the largest independent beer consumer website in the world for reasons of beery camaraderie is not yet old or wise enough to understand how the world works.

It won’t be for the money - they have way too much of that already. It might be in order to get access to more information about how the thing works or conceivably to get greater access to something or other. It may become clearer eventually.

Or it might simply be in order to undermine RB’s reputation for independence. In which case, good job guys, it’s working so far!

Be sure that (almost) no one here believe in the "beery camaraderie" reason. I don’t believe in the access to more information. It remains the only thing which we all can see happening now: your last point.

Undermining RB’s reputation is a terrible motive to invest in it. Believing ridiculous things like this is an issue, because it takes away from the actual motive of the investment.

Well, the information access must have played a part. But I just can’t stop thinking that ABI really would have needed to live in a dream world if they didn’t know that Wicked Weed is a good purchase without analyzing Ratebeer stats.